Tag: dynamic range

The folks over at DXOmark, who have become the bible of camera testing , have tested the Dragon and the results are pretty incredible. The Dragon rose above all still cameras tested before it, including the best full frame and medium format cameras. Combining the best imaging sensor with the ability to shoot 100 frames per second opens up a whole new world of imaging to photographers.

– As the new leader in this category, the prototype Epic Dragon surpasses the Phase One P65+ and P65+ HR models in color sensitivity, and it marginally exceeds the mighty Phase One IQ180 digital back in our rankings.

– The headline news is, of course, that of the Dragon’s exceptionally low noise levels. The SNR (signal/noise ratio) curve shown above is simply outstanding – it’s higher than the Nikon D4’s curve for the whole of that sensor’s signal response. The shape of the response curve is interesting as well.

– This noise curve, coupled with a good color response, leads to a very high color sensitivity. At the pixel level (screen mode), the color sensitivity is simply the best ever measured. We normally calculate color sensitivity using an 8-bit output sRGB colorspace. In this case, however, the 8-bit sRGB color space was not large enough to accurately represent the color sensitivity of the Epic Dragon. As a result, we had to switch to a 16-bit sRGB color space!

– this new technology just may forever change the way both footage and stills are shot in the future.

For the tests, the camera was set to full 6k resolution at 23.98 fps, 16 bit and RC 5:1 compression.

Just finished working on a series of commercials with my new camera – Epic from Red. The Epic is the latest and by far best camera out in the market today. Its being used to shoot movies such as Spiderman, The Hobbit and Avatar to name a few. The Epic has features such as HDR which let you shoot scenes with 18 stops of Dynamic range. The next best camera can only get to 14 stops. This camera is what we all have been waiting for !